


For a Time

by eadreytheiptscray



Category: Pan (2015)
Genre: Angst, Friends to Enemies, Gen, I'm sorry I thought this was going to be happier than it ended up being, Post-Movie: Pan (2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadreytheiptscray/pseuds/eadreytheiptscray
Summary: "Forever" doesn't mean "permanent."
Relationships: James Hook & Peter Pan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	For a Time

**Author's Note:**

> I watched "Pan" last night and didn't expect it to resonate as much as it did, considering it built up a found family and ended with dramatic irony. So, I thought I'd try my hand at what happened between that story and the one we know so well.

"We'll always be friends, right, Hook?"

"Always. What could possibly go wrong?"

Why wouldn't Peter believe him? Nothing seemed impossible from the deck of a pirate ship sailing through the clouds above war-torn London. If fairies and magic were real, then why not bedtime stories and happily-ever-afters?

The newly freed orphans cheered as the gray orphanage and muddy streets vanished under their feet, and they _ooh_ -ed and _aah_ -ed at the twinkling stars in the black velvet sky.

Hook flashed a dazzling smile at Peter before shouting, "hold on."

The ship plummeted through the night sky and burst into daylight. Ahead of them, cotton-candy clouds parted, revealing sugary-white peaks and a forest greener than any victory garden.

"Is this Canada?" Nibs asked breathlessly.

"Better." Peter grinned. "This is Neverland."

* * *

The Lost Boys should have a hideout, Peter decided, so he and Hook made quick work of turning the wreck of _The Ranger_ into a home. After sleeping on lumpy mattresses and waking to the shrieks of air raid sirens, not even the whoops of Neverbirds could make the former orphans stir in their hammocks.

While they slept, Peter and Hook took to the skies, raiding the pirates' storehouses, and when that got boring, sneaking into the mines to free kids no older than Peter. It didn't take long for the pirates to notice the missing food and clothes and treasure and miners, and it became a thrilling game of hide-and-seek. Before long, the Lost Boys were joining in.

The adventures stopped when Peter earned his first scar.

"It's too dangerous," Hook said to Peter's grumbling. "We're not going anymore."

"But I'm a _warrior_."

"No, you're a kid." _And you don't understand anything about power vacuums or survival or death_ , he wanted to add. 

Because while Peter and the Lost Boys had been caught up in the euphoria of hunting for treasure and fighting pirates, Hook couldn't ignore what happened when the pirate all pirates fear suddenly disappeared from the top of the food chain. With so many pirates fighting to fill Blackbeard's position to hold onto the crumbling empire, the miners were thrown back and forth through shifting loyalties like seaweed in a stormy ocean. It had happened before, and it was happening again.

He didn't care then, but that was before Peter. But he knew there was no point in reasoning with the kid, so he didn't.

* * *

But Peter didn't listen, and one night a raid turned into a massacre. Too few Lost Boys returned to the camp that night, and Peter wasn't among them. Hook wasted no time setting off for the sky port in the _Jolly Roger_ , cursing his friend's recklessness and his own stupidity for thinking Peter would actually take his warnings seriously.

The pirates had done away with the popular vote with Blackbeard gone, and he didn't like the look of all those planks extending into the sunrise. As he sailed closer, he realized those weren't birds diving toward the ocean far below. He set his jaw.

* * *

Rescuing Peter meant telling the biggest lie yet, but surely the kid had grown up enough to see right through it. Apparently not.

"You _liar_!" Peter screamed, rushing for his former friend with feral fury.

"I do that sometimes," Hook muttered, not bothering to block the kid's punches. "It's called being a grown-up."

"Then it's a good thing I can never grow up. I never want to end up like you."

That shouldn't hurt as much as it does. "I'm sorry, kid. I didn't mean—'"

A loud splash caught his attention, and he swore under his breath. They'd drifted far from their original course, and they were sailing low over the waters of Mermaid Lagoon. There was a flash of white teeth and the snapping of timbers, and then the world went black.

* * *

Immortal boys could grow up, no matter how much they protested. At first the stories Peter Pan told his Lost Boys were true. But over many retellings, each one filled with more bitterness than the last, the sacrifice a friend had made for another turned into a just punishment for an enemy.

On the nights when memories of the better days haunted him, Captain Hook would take a dinghy into the forest, muttering an apology under his breath. But then he'd stumble upon the rotting timbers of _The Ranger_ , no longer the Lost Boys' hideout, and his gleaming hook would catch the moonlight, and he'd remember that Peter Pan had given up on "forever" a long time ago.


End file.
